COMMUNITY TRADEMARKS
Registration of Trademarks in the European Union
COMMUNITY TRADEMARKS
Registration of Trademarks in the European Union
The Community Trademark
Application is processed in the Interior Market Harmonising Office located
in Alicante (SPAIN) or in any given Office of Patents and Trademarks of
Member Countries, and does not require the existence of a base trademark
in the country of origin and capable of being applied for by any physical
or juridical person established in the Member States or in those countries
that form part of Union Convention of Paris. The Community Trademark grants
the protection in the following countries:
| Spain | Germany | Austria | Italy | France |
| Portugal | The United Kingdom | Ireland | Denmark | Greece |
| Netherlands | Belgium | Sweden | Finland | Luxembourg |
The Community trademarks are granted for a period of 10 years, renewable indefinitely for equal periods and are granted for all Member States, allowing for the same rights as the national trademark in each country and at a very reasonable, proportional cost.
Shedule
of charges
Power
of Attorney
Community
Trademark Search
They have been drawn up to cover
the majority of current cases, and consequently can be regarded only as
general instructions. These Guidelines are not, therefore, legislative
texts. The parties, and the Office, must where necessary refer to Regulation
No 40/94 on the Community trade mark, the Regulation implementing that
Regulation, the Regulation on fees and the Regulation for proceedings before
the Boards of Appeal and, finally, the interpretation of these texts handed
down by the Boards of Appeal and the Court of Justice of the European Communities,
including the Court of First Instance of the European Communities.
Moreover, the Office and practitioners
must accept the idea that a natural learning period is needed for these
procedures to be established. These Guidelines cannot, therefore, be exhaustive
as of now and will unquestionably have to evolve and be adapted in accordance
with practice and with the new requirements that arise from the experience
gained.
Up to that time the law governing
the registration and use of trade marks was exclusively national and made
it difficult for the same trade mark to be used throughout the European
Community.
In future, these marks will be able
to enjoy uniform protection, have effect throughout the Community and be
governed by a single Community law which is directly applicable in all
the Member States.
The OHIM: Office for Harmonization
in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs), established in Alicante,
is therefore responsible for granting official Community industrial property
rights. To this end, it applies the registration procedures, maintains
the public registers of these rights and, primarily, rules on applications
for declaration of invalidity of these rights after their registration.
In order to perform these tasks,
the Office has units which are competent to make individual decisions,
specifically: examiners, responsible for the examination of the application
up to registration of the Community trade mark; opposition divisions, responsible
for opposition proceedings against applications for registration; invalidity
divisions, responsible for handling applications for revocation or invalidity
of a Community trade mark; and a division responsible for the administration
of trade marks and legal matters.
Schematically, this procedure for
the examination of an application for registration can be summarized as
comprising the following seven stages:
Schematically, it comprises 5 stages:
In summary, this procedure comprises
the following 5 stages: